Deputy Don

My great great grand parents came from Missouri, Canada, and Minnesota. They were some of the first whites to encounter the indians on Camano Island. I’m a true son of Washington State as I’ve lived in most parts. In 1981, we had a little capitol and I wanted to go camping (semi permanently). We moved the family to southern Oregon to do some gold mining. In 84, my knee blew out mining so I turned to horse training (seemed natural) working for ranches for a few years before homesickness brought us back to Washington and the Methow. We bought an old place a few hundred yards from the old Rockview Dance Hall site.

I definitely got into radio through a backdoor. Sometime around 1992 a new radio station here in Winthrop went up – KVLR 106.3 FM. It was a very eclectic station and Cowboy George was the morning DJ. George was a natural entertainer, cowboy poet and country music DJ. One day I went down to meet him and loan him a bunch of cowboy poetry and music CDs I had. We became friends and he asked me to cover his show for a couple weeks while he drove a horse trailer of stuff the station had gathered for flood victims in the mid west.

That was the very humble start. I taped myself and died a thousand deaths as I kept re-playing what I recorded. Slowly it took hold and I got used to it.

Stuff changed, George left. I got hired, I became Music Director, I got fired, owners changed, I came back, I quit, I was part of asking the FCC for the K-root frequency, I became GM of said frequency.